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Archive for the ‘The New Agenda’ Category

A Marin County Cautionary Tale

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, Feminism, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , on November 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Previously titled “A Marin County Ghost Story”. (what can I say; I was tired, this sounds better.)

Long ago in a faraway place called Marin County, I took a job selling Champion motor homes. My husband and I hadn’t been married that long, maybe 3 years. We had two toddlers.  Money was tight.  Because we were living in SF at the time and had only one car, my husband, who had met the man and found me this job, drove me there for what was supposed to be the first day of many, with idea I would take the bus back, a trip of at least an hour.

As many of you more savvy people might anticipate, after my husband left, the sexual innuendos began. So well ok, the guy is a jerk. It was the 70’s, free sex was all around, and I was 22. Pretty much for the entire day the sexual advances continued. I’m thinking I’ll just handle it and not come back.  The lot closed and others left, one coming to say goodbye with an odd look.

It was time for me to go and catch the bus. He blocked the entrance to the motor home I was in. He was friendly, but blocking the entrance saying it’s too far to take the bus and he is going to give me ride home. So now the question, do I attempt to push by the guy or will this get worse? The lot was dark, my husband was an hour away, it was before cell phones, and he wasn’t going to let me in the office to make a call. He was pretty insistent at this point that we should have sex.

It was all so friendly and calm, it was the 70’s and sex wasn’t a big deal, HIV/AIDS wasn’t known yet. Even so, I didn’t want to have sex with this asshole. Was it better to keep it calm and friendly or could it escalate? So I made a bargain. I gave him a blowjob. Yes, it was still sex, but I didn’t have to get naked, I didn’t have to lie down. He didn’t touch my body. I could have bitten him, and run out, but in the 70’s in Marin County, in the dark, I might not have made it anywhere whole.

Afterwards he took me home. The next day he called my husband and apologized to him, not me. ( Had he thought my husband was offering me up?) I wouldn’t talk to him. He tried to tell my husband that he had a good wife and family and didn’t know why he did this. (Meaning he did it more than once?) He wanted my husband to feel sorry for him. In thinking about it, this incident may be one reason why I prefer to drive myself places.

Today in 2009, a lot of us, including me, would handle this kind of thing differently. However, even when we do our best to protect ourselves, there are times when we just don’t recognize the pattern until it is too late.

Why am I telling what will certainly be an icky story for my granddaughter to read? The answer is that I never told my older daughter. Now, as she is beginning a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former employer, I realize I have left out some important information to pass on. We are strong women; we can survive just about anything.

However, don’t assume a sexual harasser can be managed. You shouldn’t have to. Just because you make it one day or the next doesn’t mean that if an opportunity arises a predator will refrain. After the second time you have to say no, start a journal. Complain to Human Resources. Don’t think sexual grooming happens only to children. If a sexual predator attempts to groom you and fails, don’t assume he will just leave you alone.  Expect retaliation.  The jails are full of people, mostly men, who are incredibly personable and have spent most of their years planning how to get you, and are very patient. Don’t manage, do what it takes to stop it. Whatever that is.

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The Silent Majority: Adult Victims of Sexual Exploitation by Clergy

EMOTIONAL ABUSE in the workplace.

Communication Tactics Used By Sexual Predators To Entrap Children Explained

Preventing Sexual Harassment: A Fact Sheet For Employees

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Veteran’s Day 2009, and NNAHM

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, Great American Women, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

WAPO is commemorating Veteran’s Day, with an article on Tammy Duckworth and the new generation at the VA.

Today’s Christian Science Monitor’s article discusses new attempts to help homeless vets. I have to say I don’t think there has been this much Federal activity in this direction since Governor Reagan. You may remember him. He’s the one that did so much in aid of the population’s growth in CA when he shut down thousands of hospital beds as a cost cutter.

President Obama was busy speechifying at Arlington, as he did yesterday in Fort Hood, Texas.

New Hampshire’s Peterboro, the company that has been making USAn made baskets since 1854, is offering a few patriotically themed baskets in celebration of Veterans Day. You know the ones; they make picnic, pie and bicycle baskets.

My hometown is having a parade in just a few minutes, and I’ve been searching for my display flag, the one my mother gave me, all day. I haven’t been able to find it since we packed a few things into storage.

Elsewhere around the Bay area, these VA events are happening.

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On Oct 30 Barack Obama proclaimed November as National Native American Heritage Month. (NNAHM)

Indigenous peoples in Alaska are giving informative lectures on various tribes and nations.

As well, in Alaska, the Juneau Empire is featuring daily, a different member of the Juneau native community.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is taking applications for their 2010 list of Endangered Native American Places.

The Library of Congress has put together an interview and web page on Keith M Little, Navajo code talker during WWII.

The National Park Service has nicely featured in their National Register of Historic Places, properties relating to “American Indian Heritage Month”.

Mills College, in Oakland, CA is commemorating the month with various activities. The next will be an evening of music and dinner on November 19th.

WaterturtleWeaver has a new 2010 ethnobotany calandar on sale, that looks scrumptious! The project was a cooperative effort including well known artist-ethnologist Deborah Small and photographer-weaver Rose Ramierz.

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Happy Birthday Abbie!

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, Great American Women, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , on November 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Born this day, November 11th, 1744: Abigail Adams, First Lady of the United States, March 4th, 1797- March 4th, 1801.

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Maria Mayer

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, Great American Women, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , on November 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

On this day November 10th, 1963, Maria Mayer became the first American woman and second woman ever, to win  the Nobel Prize in Physics. Her working life was indicative of the strictures many women have suffered toward achievement in a male dominated field.

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So, I sent this To BusinessWeek(updated)

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, Feminism, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , , , , , , on November 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Debate Room over at BusinessWeek has posted this debate topic:
Low-Income Women: Get Married

-Update-

Someone over at NewsWeek finally did publish my comment, so I am removing it here. However, it’s still worth a look to SEE what was posted in their “Debate Room” this week, suggesting that low-income women should get married as a way out of poverty.

What do you think?

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Women’s Equality Day

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, voter reform, women, tagged , , , , , on August 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

What are you doing to celebrate? August 26th, 1920 was the  day women in the United states obtained the right to vote. The 19th amendment, introduced in 1878 and establishing suffrage for women, took 42 years to become law. In 1971, after Bella Abzug’s introductory legislation, and a bill passed and  signed into law by President Nixon, the day was proclaimed as Women’s Equality Day.  Without yet having achieved the ERA, the term “Equality” can only be applied in the narrow sense, as it relates to voting rights. However,  certainly women and men everywhere can celebrate  this day, today, as the great leap forward it represents.

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Hurrah!

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, I Own My Vote, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Is this good news or what? Can you believe that guy? Can you believe North Korea? and Kim Jong-il?

Clinton, U.S. journalists leave North Korea

Tue Aug 4, 2009 11:35pm EDT

By Jonathan Thatcher

[SEOUL (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Bill Clinton left North Korea on Wednesday with two American journalists whose release he secured in a meeting with the hermit state’s leader, possibly opening the way to direct nuclear disarmament talks….]

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5735XL20090805

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Managing Knowledge

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, Great American Women, I Own My Vote, LGBT, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, tagged , , , on July 21, 2009| 4 Comments »

In business, and other fields such as information systems, “Knowledge Management”, (to quote Wiki,) has been “an established discipline since 1991”. If you click on the link above, you will see that essentially it is a field of study in how knowledge is learned, passed around, and the process optimized.

I’ve always found it to be a pretty interesting subject, especially in regard to the twin topics of “Explicit Knowledge” and “Tacit Knowledge“.

Perhaps explicit knowledge best relates to the left side of our linear brain, where thing can be discussed, measured, stored and written about.  Knowledge like this might include databases, manuals, or drawings.

Tacit knowledge is different in that is not directly communicated. Closed communities and groups develop shared pools of information, not directly articulated. An example might be when a junior person observes a senior employee’s efforts with a difficult client. The junior will certainly learn more quickly what works and what doesn’t. This form of mentoring is highly useful and an efficient way of increasing the knowledge pool of the company. Aside from the explicit knowledge being transmitted, the hand gestures, facial expressions, attitudes, and subliminal word meanings are part of what is being learned. Funny examples might include the day someone tells you that your dog and you look and act alike, or you hear your child whining, complaining or yelling and are horrified they sound like you.

The pools of information that are formed by growing explicit and tacit knowledge are part of what is called the intellectual capital of a business, information system, or group.

Why am I talking about this subject? Here is an example of the point I am about to make:

If you haven’t yet been over to the Confluence today, be sure and check out Dakinikat’s comments on monetary policy, HERE.

Dakinikat has extensive explicit knowledge in the subject of banking, monetary policy, and economics.

Her blogs are dense and sparkly. As her waves of logic pull you along, the patterns in the economic sands are revealed to us all. Even though she is sharing explicit knowledge, her sharing, or “story telling” provides other information.  I have a sense of her truth and fairness, of altruism in the desire to communicate, and her outrage over our current economy. So, from that vantage point, as one of the less informed,  it is pretty easy to trust and work to understand what she says. I would feel that way even if I didn’t usually agree with her.

One of the ideas in knowledge management is that there is so much information in the world; that it is becoming difficult to evaluate what to read, where to get data, and whom to trust. How is good information to be gained?

One idea is to “fly” over the river of information and “dip” in, like a seagull might do for the right fish. This assumes the seagull, us, has a method of judging the fish or data, before she dips and bites, and after, if it turns up rotten. I can see how this method might work in an information technology system, where only tiny bits of data are identifiers. I don’t think dipping is proving so far, for me, at least, to efficiently make a judgment on quality, and absorb the information. I need much more time in the day.

For me, tacit knowledge often is what determines what I choose to read, and whether I read or not. As we flatten more and more of our information in order to compress it into the media river, it seems to me the fairness, research and depth I want in an article, a report, are getting harder to find. So this brings up another point.

As newspapers continue to retrench and media in general is taken over by the oligarchy, how are we going to find the real journalists? How are going to find our truth tellers? ? How we are going to support those who are?

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090720 – Monday Ketchup

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, Great American Women, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Footprints and trails.

What Quaker Dave SAID:

We won’t come close to what this felt like again until we touch Mars, or the next planet, or the next system. Even then, with the wonder of those events yet to arrive, they will be points on a continuum.

In the mean time, while humans are floating through the atmosphere of the Gods, we have the wonder of the first African American man to lead the NASA agency:  Charles Bolden, and a woman, Lori Garver, as Deputy Administrator.

SacBee is reporting here this evening that California’s solons have, amazingly, reached a budget agreement, HERE.

Lest you get your hopes up, it still has to be ratified by legislature.  I haven’t seen it yet; I have no idea what they came up with.  They are hoping the plan’s ratification will give them the credit they need to acquire short term loans and avoid the IOU’s they have been reduced to.

We lost another pioneer this week, Walter Cronkite.

In addition, we lost a wonderful writer, Frank McCourt.

We are thinking of this MAN. We hope he returns soon.

In the fifth year of a growing tradition, North Carolina Cherokee hosted tribes from far-flung places including origins in Hawaii, Mexico, Peru, New Mexico, British Columbia, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

FESTIVAL HONORS HISTORY, HERITAGE, ART

[CHEROKEE, N.C. – Traditions, history and cultures collided as indigenous tribes gathered for the fifth annual Festival of Native Peoples, with a special Indian Art Market Preview on July 16, at the Cherokee Indian Fair Grounds….]

http://nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2187&Itemid=0

We witnessed the return of the Blob, last seen in 1958, HERE. Since it was last dropped off in the Artic, it probably wasn’t too much of a swim to Alaska after all that global warming.

Do we sci-fi people know our stuff or what?

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Meme Tag Games?

Posted in 51 Percent, Feminism, LGBT, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged on July 20, 2009| 4 Comments »

Geez Shtuey!

–       Oh yeah, I remember, playfulness is the sign of a superior mind and all that…

“It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes”

~ St. Thomas Aquinas quotes

Well, you’ve got both, and how sneaky can you get!

Okay,

1) I moved so much as a kid I tend to remember places by the foods I ate, and the landscape before I remember the people. Every time I moved back to S.F., Dave Brubeck”s “Take Five” would play on the radio coming over one of the bridges. It was a mystical experience always accompanied by appropriate angst and melancholy.

2) I like people, but they are exhausting to be around- I should have been a farmer or a tree hugger hermit. When you are with people you have to talk, and use words and explain yourself. Grunting, pointing and an eye roll or two are so much more satisfactory. Plus, there tends to be a big disconnect in my blogging life interests and those with whom I generally congregate. This leads to a lot of extra work just to get to the starting point of a discussion for those subjects. I always have admiration for those who have oodles of words, can be the life of the party and feed off of it.

3) I’ve been told I think like a “man”, whatever that means. (Venus? Mars? Free sex? Since I wound up in a “man’s” trade, I guess it’s a good thing I like them generally and like being around them. Don’t pass that info around however; it’s not the kind of discussion to have standing on a swing stage on the side of a building, or a roof. (Too much information, not enough explanation! What does she mean? Is she coming onto me? My God, my wife was right! I’m 40 stories up the wall with a crazy person!)

4) I love music, but it’s an intense experience. So, I can’t have music on if I am doing anything else, except maybe vacuuming, and sometimes driving. Since I am usually doing something, I don’t listen to much music.I love plays, symphonies, musicals, and maybe a little opera, and underground movies, but I never go anymore. I like the Dead, Santana, Celtic, John Cage, Heavy Metal, Pink, Blondie, Doors, Chilean, Sousa, Mexican polka, Jazz, some blue grass, the Animals, Prince, Acid Rain, B- 52’s, 40’s bebop, African, Reggae, Marley, – really it’s easier to say what I don’t like – rap, hip-hop, and western. Especially western! Especially modern western!!! I can live with some old country and backwoods folksong.

5) I do travel in my RV a lot and like ferreting around the back roads at my own pace. I just found out I might have something in common with Elisabeth Hasselback (Horrors!)– Celiac Disease. The RV, with its kitchen, might turn out to be my main source of travel. I guess it’s a good thing I like to cook from scratch as well. The RV also carries books, which is another good thing, since I like to read, read, read, and tend to collect them wherever I go.

6) Until recently I spent my workday absorbing a lot of minutiae and then dutifully regurgitating it. (Did you tie off? Did you check the scaffold ties? I cannot tell you to stop work, but I will not pass this area because you have failed to nail it off 3 inches on center, staggered. Where is the bill of lading that indicates this is lead free solder? You must return that mop bucket bitumen to the kettle, it is below 300 degrees. That’s interesting, why did you do that? Show me in the specifications where it says you can do that. What do you mean you don’t have the specs? You are scarring the aluminum, change your razor blade. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you have been doing that way for 15 years or not, it’s wrong and take it out! I told you, I’m not getting on the rig with you until we check the tie offs!) I’m trying to decide if I want return to this lovely and fulfilling line of work.  Unfortunately, I’m pretty good at it, and there is a need. Perhaps, if I get the aforementioned Celiac thingy under control I may. It seems to have been sucking my energy for some time. The improvement since I went off wheat has been pretty stunning.

Allegres Corner

Blue Lyon

Peacocks and Lillies

The Reclusive Leftist

Quaker Agitator

Partizane

Donna Darko

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